Debate: The Homeland Security ACT of 2002

THE HOMELAND
SECURITY ACT OF 2002 [Excerpted from Congressional
Record of 11/14/02]

Thursday, 14 November 14, 2002

Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan: "...as Senator
Byrd has said so many times on the floor, we need to look at
details. We need to know what is in this bill. It is a
different bill that came back. I was deeply disturbed as I
looked through it. I want to support homeland security. I
support developing a department. We all share that. This is
not a partisan issue. We want to have maximum safety,
security and ability, communicate it effectively and
efficiently, and create the kind of confidence people expect
us to create in terms of the ability to respond and ideally
prevent attacks. But my fear is that under the name of
homeland security we are saying special interest provisions
are put in this bill which are outrageous and should not
have the light of day. I think it is our responsibility to
shine the light of day on those provisions."

Senator
Robert Byrd of West Virginia:

"I remember years ago,
when I was in the House of Representatives, sending out a
little booklet to the people in my then-congressional
district of how our laws are made ...[describes the process
of hearings, committees, debate, reports, etc. etc.]... we
all remember how those laws are made according to the script
as prepared there in those handsome little booklets that we
send out. That is how the American people expect this
Congress to operate. That is the way we are supposed to
operate.

But the way this bill was brought in here,
less than 48 hours ago, a brand-new bill. It had not been
before any committee. It had undergone no hearings, not this
bill. It is a bill on our desks that has 484 pages. There
are 484 pages in this bill.

It has not been before any
committee. There have been no hearings on this bill. There
have been no witnesses who were asked to appear to testify
on behalf of the bill or in opposition to it. It did not
undergo any such scrutiny.

It was just placed on the
Senate Calendar. It was offered as an amendment here. And so
here it is before the Senate now. There it is. That is not
the way in which our children are taught how we make our
laws--not at all.

The American people expect us to
provide our best judgment and our best insight into such
monumental decisions. This is a far, far cry from being our
best. This is not our best. As a matter of fact, it is a
mere shadow of our best. Yet we are being asked, as the
elected representatives of the American people, those of us
who are sent here by our respective States are being asked
on tomorrow to invoke closure on these 484 pages.

If I
had to go before the bar of judgment tomorrow and were asked
by the eternal God what is in this bill, I could not answer
God. If I were asked by the people of West Virginia, Senator
Byrd, what is in that bill, I could not answer. I could not
tell the people of West Virginia what is in this bill.

There are a few things that I know are in it by virtue of
the fact that I have had 48 hours, sleeping time included,
in which to study this monstrosity, 484 pages. If there ever
were a monstrosity, this is it. I hold it in my hand, a
monstrosity. I don't know what is in it. I know a few things
that are in it, and a few things that I know are in it that
I don't think the American people would approve of if they
knew what was in there.

Even Senator Lieberman, who is
chairman of the committee which has jurisdiction over this
subject matter, even he saw new provisions in this
legislation as he looked through it yesterday and today. As
his staff looked through it, they saw provisions they had
not seen before, that they had not discussed before, that
had not been before their committee before.

Yet we are
being asked on tomorrow to invoke cloture on that which
means we are not going to debate in the normal course of
things. We are going to have 30 hours of debate. That is it,
30 hours. That is all, 30 hours; 100 Senators, 30 hours of
debate.

And this is one of the most far-reaching
pieces of legislation I have seen in my 50 years. I will
have been in Congress 50 years come January 3... Never have
I seen such a monstrous piece of legislation sent to this
body. And we are being asked to vote on that 484 pages
tomorrow. Our poor staffs were up most of the night studying
it. They know some of the things that are in there, but they
don't know all of them. It is a sham and it is a shame.

We are all complicit in going along with it. I read in the
paper that nobody will have the courage to vote against it.
Well, ROBERT BYRD is going to vote against it because I
don't know what I am voting for. That is one thing. And No.
2, it has not had the scrutiny that we tell our young
people, that we tell these sweet pages here, boys and girls
who come up here, we tell them our laws should have.

Listen, my friends: I am an old meatcutter. I used to make
sausage. Let me tell you, I never made sausage like this
thing was made. You don't know what is in it. At least I
knew what was in the sausage. I don't know what is in this
bill. I am not going to vote for it when I don't know what
is in it. I trust that people tomorrow will turn thumbs down
on that motion to invoke cloture. It is our duty.

We
ought to demand that this piece of legislation stay around
here a while so we can study it, so our staffs can study it,
so we know what is in it, so we can have an opportunity to
amend it where it needs amending.

Several Senators
have indicated, Senator Lieberman among them, that there are
areas in here that ought to be amended. What the people of
the United States really care about is their security. That
is what we are talking about. We don't know when another
tragic event is going to be visited upon this country. It
can be this evening, it can be tomorrow, or whatever. But
this legislation is not going to be worth a continental dime
if it happens tonight, tomorrow, a month from tomorrow; it
is not going to be worth a dime. There are people out there
working now to secure this country and the people. They are
the same people who are already on the payroll. They are
doing their duty right now to secure this country.

This is a hoax. This is a hoax. To tell the American people
they are going to be safer when we pass this is to hoax. We
ought to tell the people the truth. They are not going to be
any safer with that. That is not the truth. I was one of the
first in the Senate to say we need a new Department of
Homeland Security. I meant that. But I didn't mean this
particular hoax that this administration is trying to pander
off to the American people, telling them this is homeland
security. That is not homeland security. Mr. President, the
Attorney General and Director of Homeland Security have told
Americans repeatedly there is an imminent risk of another
terrorist attack. Just within the past day, or few hours,
the FBI has put hospitals in the Washington area, Houston,
San Francisco, and Chicago on notice of a possible terrorist
threat.

This bill does nothing--not a thing--to make
our citizens more secure today or tomorrow. This bill does
not even go into effect for up to 12 months. It will be 12
months before this goes into effect. The bill just moves
around on an organizational chart. That is what it
does--moves around on an organizational chart.

The
Senate Appropriations Committee, on which Senator Stevens
and I sit, along with 27 other Senators, including the
distinguished Senator who presides over the Chamber at this
moment, the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, tried to
provide funds to programs to hire more FBI agents, to hire
more border patrol agents, to equip and train our first
responders, to improve security at our nuclear powerplants,
to improve bomb detection at our airports. That committee of
29 Senators--15 Democrats and 14 Republicans--voted to
provide the funds for these homeland security needs. Those
funds have been in bills that have been out there for 4
months. But the President said no--no, he would not
sign it. President Bush is the man I am talking about. He
would not sign that as an emergency. These moneys have been
reported by a unanimous Appropriations Committee. But this
administration said no. So that is what happened. These are
actions that would make America more secure today. Did the
President help us to approve these funds? No. Instead, the
President forced us--forced us--to reduce homeland security
funding by $8.9 billion, and he delayed another $5 billion.
This is shameful; this is cynical; this is being
irresponsible. It is unfair to the American people. And then
to tell them Congress ought to pass that homeland security
bill--that is passing the buck.

Mr. President, I call
attention to a column in the New York Times. This is
entitled ``You Are A Suspect.'' It is by William Safire. I
will read it:

"If the homeland security act is not
amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:"
Listen, Senators. This is what William Safire is saying in
the New York Times of November 14, 2002. That is today. This
is what the New York Times is saying to you, to me, to us:
"If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage,
here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make"--
Hear me now-- "Every purchase you make with a credit card,
every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription
you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or
receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank
deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you
attend--all these transactions and communications will go
into what the Defense Department describes as ``a virtual,
centralized grand database.'' ... "Political awareness can
overcome "Total Information Awareness," the combined force
of commercial and government snooping. In a similar
overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism
Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage
at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused
the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the
same to this other exploitation of fear." [ see complete
Safire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/opinion/14SAFI.html
-- Byrd reads the entire article to the Senate] If
the American people, if the American public is to believe
what they read in this week's newspapers, the Congress
stands ready to pass legislation to create a new Department
of Homeland Security. Not with my vote. Passage of such
legislation would be the answer to the universal battle cry
that this administration adopted shortly after the September
11 attacks: Reorganize the Federal Government.

How is
it that the Bush administration's No. 1 priority has evolved
into a plan to create a giant, huge bureaucracy? How is it
that the Congress bought into the belief that to take a
plethora of Federal agencies and departments and shuffle
them around would make us safer from future terrorist
attacks?..."

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